Some authors have argued that Hong Kong provides a reasonable basis for making inferences about education for Mainland China, but other research has hinted at the inappropriateness of using the '"Westernized" attitudinal characteristics of the Hong Kong Chinese for such purposes. To test if Hong Kong constitutes a sound proxy for understanding Chinese business students, this study compared the rationales of students in the Mainland (n = 71) and Hong Kong (n = 68) for undertaking an MBA. Significant differences were found overall and by sex, age, and educational background.
[Copyright of Journal of Education for Business is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832320009599050 ]

In a rapidly changing society, business education needs to likewise change and evolve to remain relevant and useful. This paper looks at the graduates of one university in Hong Kong and examines how well they feel they are prepared for the world of work. Through the analysis of secondary data, an assessment was made of the success or otherwise of the restructuring and redesign of the undergraduate business programme at City University of Hong Kong, in terms of appropriately training students to meet the demands of the market. By comparing the results of an exit survey conducted on four cohorts of final year students, with the Government's recommendations on what tertiary education should achieve in the contemporary knowledge-based society of the twenty-first century, it was found that the new Bachelor of Business Administration programme at City University of Hong Kong, through its formal and informal curricula, appears to have equipped its graduating students with not only solid technical knowledge but also other valuable competencies and life-skills.
[Copyright of Journal of Teaching in International Business is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J066v16n04_04]

This paper identifies and describes Hong Kong secondary business teachers' conceptions of student competence in business education, and their choice of teaching approaches to developing such competence. It also addresses the relationship between the conceptualisation of competence and teaching approaches in developing student competence. Phenomenography and grounded theoretical coding techniques were employed in the study, and the participants were 26 in-service business teachers. These teachers' conceptions of competence and their choice of teaching approaches were found to be multifaceted and semi-hierarchical. The identified conceptions address the basic and higher levels of competence that require different approaches in teaching. On the basis of the findings, it is recommended that teachers should not adopt an over-simplified view of the constitution of business students' competence and their competence development. They should be aware of their conceptions of competence, choice of teaching approaches and facilitation of student reflection in competence development.
[Copyright of Journal of Vocational Education and Training is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13636820802305603]

Using data gathered directly from over 100 executive MBA students in Hong Kong, this article reveals the reasons why executives decide to pursue an MBA and highlights significant differences in motivations by gender, age, educational background, and working experience that have important implications for MBA course and program developers.
[Copyright of Journal of Education for Business is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832320009599021]

The purpose of this study is to identify attributes of public accounting firms that accounting graduates find most desirable in their job selection decisions, and the impacts of individual differences on these perceptions. Factor analysis performed on the responses of 167 final-year accounting students in Hong Kong to a 30-item questionnaire identified seven factors. The results indicate that accounting graduates considered help in finishing their professional accounting examinations and good staff relationships as the most important criteria in their choice of employers. In addition, female accounting graduates were more concerned about the possibility of being required to travel or be transferred, but were less concerned about the reputation and profile (such as the client base and the size) of the firms than their male counterparts. Accounting graduates with a higher grade point average (GPA) were less concerned about the working environment, but more concerned about a firms' reputation and profile than those with a lower GPA. The implications of these results are discussed.
[Copyright of Accounting Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639280010010452]